Jack-in-the-Box Office for the weekend of April 23rd -25th

In another disappointing weekend at the Box-Office, three new films failed to impress while many hold-overs had steep drop-offs. In its fifth week of release “How to Train Your Dragon” made its way back to the top of the Box-Office, and had the lowest-grossing weekend for a film in the number one spot in 2010 thus far. While the film is still far behind the grosses of “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda”, it has continued to pay off nicely for Dreamworks, as the domestic and worldwide totals now sit at $178 and $355 million respectively, a handsome profit margin from a $165 budget.

In second place was the embarrassing opening weekend for “The Back-Up Plan”, making this the second flop in a row for CBS films (which has only released two films so far, this and “Extraordinary Measures”). While their pervious film was a theatrical flop by every possible measure, “The Back-Up Plan” may or may not follow suit. The Jennifer Lopez-vehicle cost $35 million and has a domestic opening weekend gross of $12 million. While it’s easy to see most films making a worldwide profit with these numbers, the ludicrous plot and the fact that the film stars J. Lo will likely prevent it from doing much better than the previous CBS Films venture.

“Date Night” faired better in its third week, taking in another $10 million to come in at third place. The film cost Fox $55 million and has now made $63 million domestically and $90 million worldwide. While these are still not banner figures for Steve Carell (and to lesser extents Tina Fey and director Shawn Levy), the film’s profit margin has it being hailed as a success.

“The Losers” came in at fourth place with a disappointing $9,6 million. The film suffered from lackluster marketing and comparisons to “Kick-Ass” and the up-coming “The A-Team”. As the film was made by Warner Brothers for $25 million, it could easily make a profit, depending on worldwide gross and how the word-or-mouth plays out next weekend before the market becomes dominated by “Iron Man 2”.

It was a mixed weekend for “Kick-Ass”, as although it suffered a major drop-off to take in $9.5 million, its domestic total of $34 million and its worldwide total if $56 million have already created an impressive profit margin from its $30 million budget.

In other opening weekend news, “Oceans” fell below the opening of last year’s “Earth” to take in $6 million and come in at eight place. The worldwide total is now at $62 million, which is still below the budget of $80 million, but could also easily expect to cross the $100 million mark domestically, as “Earth” did last year.

Winning the per-theater-average race this weekend was the comedy/documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” which took in $149,000 on 11 screens for an average of $13,545 per-screen and a two-week total of $391,000. The Oscar-winning “The Secret in Their Eyes” came in second by taking in $372,000 on 33 screens for an average of $11,273 and a domestic total of $605,000 and a worldwide total of $20 million.

What did you see at the movies this weekend? Whether it was the studio fare, an earth documentary, or one of the many independent films currently gracing screens (hopefully) near you, please let us know what you saw this weekend and what awards potential you see, if any. On behalf of everyone at the Awards Circuit, we hope you had a wonderful weekend at the movies, and we hope to see you back there soon.